As a Member of our larger family, you will enjoy the many benefits that the Gallery offers. Read more or contact us: 613-990-1298 | 1-888-268-0455 | members@gallery.ca

NGCMagazine.ca

The National Gallery of Canada Magazine

The NGC’s online magazine—a frequently updated source of information about the Canadian art world and the goings-on at the National Gallery of Canada. This online magazine includes exclusive interviews with artists; studio visits; interactive features; videos; short films; photo galleries; recommendations on exhibitions, films and books; as well as behind-the-scenes access and developments in the world of art that readers will not be able to find anywhere else.Go to ngcmagazine.ca now » Subscribe to the Magazine eNewsletter »

The Locks at Bougival, 1906

Maurice de Vlaminck had little academic training when he participated in the Salon d'Automne in 1905 with other Fauve painters, including André Derain, with whom he shared a studio near Chatou, west of Paris. Bougival is located on the Seine south of Chatou, where the Impressionists painted vacationing Parisians swimming, boating, and dancing during the 1870s and 1880s. In the "Locks of Bougival", however, Vlaminck portrays the quieter autumn season, transforming a scene of two figures strolling along the edge of the locks into a fireworks display of red, blue, and orange tones.

[1] The painting carries a “Peau de l'Ours” label on its stretcher [see marks and labels]. In 1904, André Level, a French financier, motivated twelve other investors to contribute two hundred and twelve francs apiece to an investment fund he called “La Peau de l'Ours” (“the bear's skin”), which was targeted at modern art. Over the next ten years, the fund bought more than a hundred paintings and drawings, including major works by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, before selling off its entire collection in an auction, held at the Hôtel Drouot, in Paris, on March 2, 1914. Level most likely bought the painting from the artist.

[3] Dr. Werner Rusche is listed as former owner in the stockbook of the Dutch art dealer E.J. Van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam, The Netherlands [Van Wisselingh archive, stock number 7139, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Dokumentatie, The Hague, The Netherlands]. Rusche established a gallery for German Modern Art in Cologne in 1946.

[4] See note [3]. A label by Van Wisselingh with the same stock number can be found on the stretcher of the painting. According to the NGC's accession log, The Locks at Bougival officially entered the NGC collection on June 1, 1951.